#also posts for future episodes shouldn't be as text-blocky 😅

[kaiowut99]

ARC-V Dubbed Episode 1... “Uncut”?! (Re-Edited 4K Dub/Japanese OST)

Swing Into Action/”A Trail of Light -- The Pendulum Summon″ [WIP #1 | WIP #2 | WIP #3 | Release WIP #4 (New!)]

Ladies and gentlemen! (And everyone in between, of course)

Finally time to get this edit off my project backburner, haha. After plugging away at this for more than a year--or I may have actually started this a little in 2022 at some point, but due to my SSD dying on me in October of that year, I pretty much lost everything and eventually had to restart this--my "dub-uncut" take on ARC-V episode 1's dub is all done! As when I worked on those 5D's "dub-uncut" episodes, I find that there's some potential in the 4K/KCM dubs, but overall it's hampered by the dub's music [which especially hurts for ARC-V given the awesome Japanese score by Kotaro Nakagawa], some writing/voice-direction choices, and other little oddities/cuts; like with that mini-project, the goal of this, as a successor to the dub-with-JP-OST take on episode 10's first 10-or-so minutes I worked on years back which served as the project's catalyst (now with better voice-isolating tech available), is to re-score the dub with the Japanese soundtrack, while also modifying the dialogue in spots to be closer to the Japanese dialogue (using either dialogue from other episodes or Duel Links/Cross Duel voicelines as needed) while editing it to the Japanese footage.

I'd been chipping away at this mostly for the past year, but worked a bit more on finalizing it and leveling the audio over the past few months to get it off the backburner, lol, along with revamping my subs for BelieveXBelieve and One Step (the former including a revamped edit of Sawatari's cards being hidden [as V1 of this OP with that was never released textless officially] and reprising my edit during the chorus to translate "KABA CARNIVAL" sliding in under the Hippo Tokens to "HIPPO CARNIVAL"; both also use the singable translations I worked on years back, though One Step's is shortened in spots). I also looked into commissioning a voiceover artist to provide voiceovers for the undubbed pre-OP prologues throughout ARC-V, and I'm very happy with the results provided by mattsindt over on Fiverr! 😄

As for the episode itself, overall they did a good job sticking to the original dialogue, so my edits were more to bring them in line with the original dialogue in those spots where they weren't. Gong[enzaka] gets his early line modified to include the names of the Monsters he's tributing; I removed Yuzu's "what do you have to say for yourself"/"figures" pre-OP; Yuya's "boulder" crack at Gong was removed; Nico gets his "as in free" line edited slightly to fit that part over the hand motion he does that was cut; I did have to slightly recycle some of Yusho's dialogue in the flashback because it was shortened some in the dub; I kept Yuya quiet as Sledgehammer [Ishijima] reacts to seeing him in the clown getup; I grabbed some Nico lines from the Maiami Championship arc to remove the added computer voice as the Action Cards get dispersed after the eyecatch; added in a missing "Ladies and gentlemen!" for Yuya as he swings towards making his first move; Yoko's lines during the Yuya flashbacks were swapped a bit since the dub swapped the scenes; I stitched together a "I tribute Hip Hippo to Tribute-Summon" line before Yuya summons Odd-Eyes Dragon, timing his hype line for it closer to JP Yuya's line; due to the aforementioned Yusho-flashback trimming, I had to get a little creative with his lines in the pre-Pendulum scene as Yuya remembers his words; I stitched together a full line about Yuya using the Magicians to set the Pendulum Scale to remove the "I'm taking control" bit; I added his "Pendulum Summon!" shout from episode 6 and shortened his "My Monsters [are ready to] swing into action!"; during the preview, I used lines from ep. 2 [or DL] that were similar to the JP dialogue, using a recycled "How'd he do that?" from ep 1 for Yuzu where it came up; and other little things here/there. Oh, and also, I've replaced and will be replacing every mention of "Zuzu" back to "Yuzu." 💁🏽‍♂️ (Still A Choice to change her name for a reference five people would get...) I might also be doing the same with mentions of "LID" to "LDS" depending on what audio works, to be consistent with the visuals [and later "Lancer Defense Soldiers"], while still keeping "Leo Institute" as an alternate name for it. (There will likely be some scenes that'll be in Japanese with hardsubs as 4K cut them, as opposed to trimming; Sora's Synchro-explanation scene in 10 or 11 comes to mind; we'll see what audio's available to make something work. Also, if Ishijima ever comes to Duel Links, I'll revise this to add in some "My turn! Draw!" lines lol.)

And speaking of visuals, I've also applied a few visual translation edits to help enhance the "what if dubbed straighter" feel to this; I translated the destination sign on the bus early in the episode, the Yusho poster at You Show, the Fan Appreciation Day poster that Nico shows to Yuya/co--a leftover from when I planned to sub ARC-V like I do my GX subs, before Crunchyroll took the wheel, though I had to revamp it (thankfully had it posted here so it survived my drive failure) and newly do the Yuya/"Special Match" closeup--and the sign on the building behind Yuya as he's crying during his flashback. I thought of resuming my attempt to translate the billboards during the early panning shot of the downtown area, but I couldn't find good enough reference shots for some of the further away/smaller ones (saves me some madness in the end, no doubt); I'll be translating stuff as feasible in future episodes, like location references in establishing shots/etc.

Footage-wise, I also chose to work off the DVD video I've had for years (with encodes for episodes 1-4 provided by GX_ST), largely because they have touchups done to the art/animation after the episodes' airings on TV that aren't used in the Crunchyroll or Amazon TV masters that make up the 1080p downloads available. (I do think the dub itself works off the DVD masters overall, and I may see if it's feasible to try and splice that footage as needed with the 1080p downloads, since the DVD masters are unfortunately not at their total best [how do you have a show airing in HD but release 480p DVDs and not BluRays guys pls save us Discotek].) I'd love to see proper/touched-up DVD rips made of ARC-V sometime, but as it is, none are available (not even from Astral_Union or NW-Sartiend who did rips for GX/ZEXAL and 5D's).

So, as with the 5D's project, I'll be releasing these over on NeoArkCradle (where I also post my GX work), as both an .mkv with the original video and a hardsubbed .avi with the visual edits, and I'll be making a Masterpost to compile the hardsub/visually-edited streaming links. The .mkv files will be dual-audio with this and the Japanese audio, with subs for the full JP audio (sourced from Crunchyroll with edits by me, as credited at the start), Signs/Lyrics per the dub audio, and Signs/Lyrics per the JP audio (It is funny how I didn't plan to sub ARC-V given CR being on it, but in revising their subs for this, I still made more than a few edits to effectively make it my own take, so I guess I am kinda 🙃 [how is their sub timing so bad])

Aaanywho, with all that establishing info out of the way, hopefully this came out nicely! Am definitely planning to work on more episodes, so stay tuned as I get those started. The fun's just swinging into action!